This article is taken from the October 2024 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £10.

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The long sobs of autumn’s violins
Wound my heart with a monotonous languor.

Paul Verlaine’s Symbolist verse shines the light of absolute truth on our emotions at the waning of the year, casting long shadows across a bright and shining summer, now merely a memory. The poetry of “Chanson d’automne” is even more elegiac given that, this year, our bright and shining summer was not so much a memory to savour, as a hope that went unmet.

But no matter, the culprit of our own climate catastrophe, be it La Niña, the polar jet stream, the gods of your temples or Two-Tier Keir, the city was no place to suffer this summer — nor any kind of summer.

I have written before about the pleasures to be found in pastoral England. But if your blood is too rich for rustic pursuits, yet your purse too poor for Tuscany or the Taj Mahal, why not summer by the sea?

After all, we live on an island; we are surrounded by water. There are places aplenty to go. It does not have to be brash Brighton or overbuilt Bournemouth. There are so many smaller spots such as Salcombe — or Padstow, where foodies feed off Rick Stein’s fish and chips. Or Aldeburgh and Southwold, where ale hunters can combine the pleasures of watering holes with water sports. Then there is Whitby, where Captain Cook learned his ropes.

There are, too, even quieter, hidden places for retreat and rest — places where the waves lap gently against the sandy shore, and crash in foaming white fountains against carboniferous Cambrian cliffs. Places where one can mess about in boats, walk or ride in the hills, go crabbing with the kids or catch mackerel from rocky promontories. Such a place is Newport, nestling at the mouth of the Nevern between Fishguard and Cardigan.

Newport is small, populated with a mere thousand souls, its natural harbour shallow, so only small craft can moor, and its community entirely unselfish. Visitors are welcomed not as ingenuous guests to be fêted then fleeced, but as old friends made to feel that they have known the place and people all their lives.

James Fells, a talented local artist, knows everything there is to know about getting a boat into the water in June, out of the water in September and staying afloat on the water in the weeks in between. James combines his canvases with helping boat owners care for their craft. When a boat approaches the jetty, everyone mucks in to help it moor safely.

I saw one lobster-potting London lady, bedecked in Boden prints and Cordings’ plimsolls, step lightly ashore with her catch. It struck me that her brown crab, supposedly straight from the seabed, was better dressed than most of the crustacea in Harrods’ Food Hall. But she was learning, she was having fun and so were all the folk around her.

Up at the boat club, which takes pride in its privileges without pretension, members, their guests, as well as visitors to the town, all mix happily. Blas At Fronlas in Market Street gives Rick Stein a run for his money, whilst Maggie and Ross Campbell, walking, talking, Newport directories, offer a helping hand to everyone.

And the scenery? The view from the Parrog over the harbour is as pretty as a Fells painting. From atop Carningli, across Traeth Mawr, the bay is simply stunning.

Summer has fled, and all its toys and treasures are put away. In 2025 we must hope for fair weather, and we must look for places to enjoy it. For those who delight in the water, and fancy a spot of sailing, and good food, amongst decent people who treat you as equal, there are few fairer places than Newport, where, when the weather gods smile, “I go where the winds know … as the winds blow”.